Why Intensity is added to your workout

No Intensity means No results

Some might think CrossFit is just a culture of sweating lots, grunting loud and cheering on a lot... But thats not why we add intensity to our workouts. It’s physics. Scientifically speaking, intensity is defined as power: force multiplied by distance, then divided by time. Simply put: Intensity is doing more work faster.

Some of our workouts are very short and we put time caps on some of the workouts to make sure people don't take longer then we like them to. Why? We don't want them to make what is supposed to be a fast, explosive workout into a slow long aerobic workout. 

Intensity is being convertible with being unconvertible. The discomfort you experience when you have to do 5 more reps when you have hit that wall is what makes you fitter. 

Note that intensity is not the same as high volume... With intensity we more or less mean do more work in less time.

Some people have theories how to go through a short intense workout. They say: 'after every 5 reps I drop the bar to be able to get through it'. If you go through, what was meant a short intense workout, like that you are missing the point. We don't expect you to go berserk either and drop dad after round 1.  What we try to achieve with the short, intense workouts is for people to hit the wall and still picking up that bar to finish their last reps.

That is where change happens. That is what gives you adaptation. And it doesn’t matter what it is. ... Going to your end point—that’s really what drives physical and hormonal change. But I see a lot of half-assing it. And not necessarily seeing things get better.

Some do a short intense workout and manage to stand up and practise some pull ups after. If you have energy left for some extra practise you have not hit that wall yet and you did not use the correct intensity. We expect you to be on the floor for at least 5min before you can even talk again :)

Do we only do high intensity workouts? No. Hight intensity workouts is one of the ways we use to make you fitter. We also work on aerobic capacity and strength. 

But next time we have a short workout on the white board with possible a time cap, make sure you scale your weight to a level where you can finsih the WOD in the expected time. Hit that wall, break it and move on. Make change happen.